Weekender: Fun in Frisco

This North Texas city is home base for shopping, sporting adventures

By Lori Moffatt

When I told friends I was heading up to Frisco for the
weekend to see Cirque du Soleil, they all agreed it was a good plan. “Such a
great city,” they concurred. “Will you have time to visit Napa while you’re in
California?”

I cocked my head in a moment of confusion, and then
clarified. “No, not San Francisco. Frisco. It’s a city north of Dallas.” I
mentioned that there’s an IKEA there to really cement the recognition.

North of the Metroplex, with the skyscrapers and
spaghetti-bowl highway intersections out of sight, it becomes clear that
Frisco—which straddles the line between Collin and Denton counties—is Blackland
Prairie country. Jackrabbits dart across suburban lawns, and the absence of any
significant topographical variation affords a misleading, almost
two-dimensional sense of scale. Frisco itself, founded in 1902 and named for a
rail line intended to connect Texas to San Francisco, was in its early years a
trading center for the area’s wheat, cotton, and corn farmers. As recently as
1990, I learned, Frisco had a population that hovered around 6,000. But in the
past two decades, thanks in part to the many corporations thriving in Collin
County, population here has skyrocketed—and now numbers nearly 125,000. “In the
old days, our main business was cotton,” one resident told me. “Now, it’s
roofs.”

Sports are a
big deal here, too: Most of Frisco’s tourist attractions and hotels are between
Preston Road and the Dallas North Tollway, including the multipurpose Dr Pepper
Arena, home to both the National Basketball Association Development League team
the Texas Legends and the Texas Tornado of the North American Hockey League.
Here, too, hockey fans can watch free practice sessions of the Dallas Stars, as
well as exhibitions of martial arts, professional tennis, boxing, skating, and
family shows like Cirque du Soleil. Just south of the arena lies the Dr Pepper
Ballpark, home to the AA Texas Rangers affiliate baseball team the Rough
Riders; five miles north lies the FC Dallas Stadium, where you can watch
professional soccer.

The big museum news in Frisco is the much-anticipated development of the 13-acre Museum of the American Railroad

The morning after the spellbinding Cirque du Soleil show, I
took a pedestrian sidewalk under the busy Tollway to explore the Texas
Sculpture Garden at Hall Office Park, the 62-acre business campus of developer
and philanthropist Craig Hall. In the late 1990s, convinced that art stimulates
creative thinking, Hall dedicated a four-acre tract at the campus’ entrance to
highlighting works by Texas sculptors and entrusted curator Patricia Meadows to
collect pieces from living artists he admired. The result, a 40-piece
collection of contemporary pieces ranging from imposing limestone monoliths to
delicate pieces of poplar and steel, is on view throughout the grounds and
buildings, free of charge. “Craig likes to look out his office window and see
parents and children, school groups, and tenants wandering around enjoying the
art,” says Meadows. Artworks by some 120 national and international artists
complete this outdoor museum.

Under the spell of Sanger artist Jerry Daniel’s graceful Dancers
MM, a sculptural brushstroke of intertwined steel and concrete, I enjoyed the
fresh air and gratifying ambiance of this rare museum without walls.

Museums with walls have their place in Frisco, as well.
Since more than a third of the population is younger than 18, most attractions
in Frisco are designed for children as well as adults. So when I learned that
the Sci-Tech Discovery Center (one of three attractions that make up the new
Frisco Discovery Center) was hosting a traveling exhibition on the science of
animation, I jumped at the chance to try my skills at cartoon voiceovers and
green-screen pratfalling. (The current exhibition here, Amusement Park Science,
continues through September.)

Nearby, adjacent to the city’s Central Fire Station, lies
Frisco Fire Safety Town, an interactive “museum” of sorts that highlights
safety for kids in a variety of arenas. Skeptical about the entertainment value
at first, I changed my tune upon visiting with firefighters about their jobs,
studying a wall mounted with various firefighting equipment, and crawling into
a real fire truck. For school-age children, Safety Town encourages tours of its
Weather Safety Room, where visitors experience an extremely believable tornado
simulation; and the Fire Room, a re-creation of a living room that fell victim
to an electrical fire. “We don’t talk down to the kids,” says Fire Chief Mack
Borchardt. “We want them to recognize the tools we use, and to know exactly
what to do to survive.”

Outside, 5/8-scale models of 20 Frisco businesses make up
the attraction’s traffic-safety village, complete with paved streets and
working traffic and crosswalk signals. A fleet of bicycles and battery-operated
jeeps invite school groups to ride through the facility, learning about seat
belts, helmets, and how to be street-wise.

Kids and adults alike enjoy learning about history at the
Frisco Heritage Museum, where exhibits illustrate the area’s history in regard
to the railroad, agriculture, and growth. Outside, a relocated log cabin and
church, a re-created schoolhouse, and homes dating to 1896 help paint a picture
of North Texas on the cusp of a new century.

But the big museum news in Frisco is the much-anticipated
(and much-delayed) development of the 13-acre Museum of the American Railroad,
which will eventually house the extensive collection of historic rolling
stock—including the Union Pacific “Big Boy,” the largest steam locomotive in
the world—now found at a cramped site in Dallas’ Fair Park. “The Heritage
Museum is a few hundred feet from our new site,” says Museum of the American
Railroad director Bob LaPrelle, “so visitors to the museum can watch the
rolling stock come in. We’re in the process of packing and loading at Fair
Park, and the trains should start arriving here by early May.”

Later that evening, after a fig-and-spring-greens salad at
TruFire Kitchen (see texashighways.com/weekender for more on Frisco
restaurants), I ventured to the massive Stonebriar Centre Mall to check out the
thriving retail scene. Tourism studies indicate that shopping is Frisco’s
Number One draw for visitors, so I wasn’t surprised to see the mall buzzing on
a Friday night.But the next
morning, as I explored Frisco’s Main Street, I happened upon the Good Steward
consignment shop and realized that Collin County’s affluence benefits the
secondhand scene, too. “People bring us brand-new things—Louis Vuitton,
Coach—that they never got around to wearing,” says owner Elizabeth Rimes, who
carries both men’s and women’s clothing, a rarity in the consignment world. I
ask her: What’s the key to finding the good stuff? Rimes pauses a bit, then
replies, “Frequency. Come visit us often.”

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ABOUT TEXAS HIGHWAYS

Published monthly by the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Highways, the official travel magazine of Texas, encourages travel to and within the Lone Star State and tells the Texas story to readers around the world.